Manhattan U.S. Attorney Charges Hassan Namazee in $292 Million Ponzi Scheme

Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the indictment today of Hassan Nemazee, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Nemazee Capital Corporation, for defrauding Bank of America, N.A. (BofA), Citibank, N.A. (Citibank), and HSBC Bank USA, N.A. (HSBC), of more than $290 million in loan proceeds. According to the indictment returned today by a grand jury and other documents filed in court following Nemazee's arrest on Aug. 25, 2009: From approximately 1998 through 2009, Nemazee obtained hundreds of millions of dollars worth of loans from BofA, Citibank, and HSBC. As of August 2009, Nemazee owed approximately $142 million to BofA and approximately $74.9 million to Citibank. Documents and signatures that Nemazee used to obtain these loans, including documents he submitted to purportedly show that he had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of collateral, were fake. Posted in: Internal Fraud